Bryant Jennings – Mike Perez Interview Transcript

· B. Bahrmasel Thank you very much for joining us. Today is the International Media Conference Call for the WBC heavyweight Eliminator between Bryant “Bye Bye” Jennings and Mike “The Rebel” Perez. The fight will take place on Saturday, July 26 at Madison Square Garden. Joining us on the call today will be Tom Loeffler from K2 Promotions, Gary Shaw from Gary Shaw Productions, Mike Perez, Bryant Jennings, Adam Booth and Fred Jenkins. Adam Booth is a trainer for Mike Perez. Fred Jenkins is the trainer for Bryant Jennings. At this point I will turn the call over to Tom Loeffler, Managing Director of K2 Promotions.

· T. Loeffler Thank you, Bernie. We’re really excited about this show. The main event is a terrific middleweight championship fight between Gennady Golovkin and Daniel Geale, and as the co-feature we have this heavyweight eliminator between two undefeated heavyweights. The only main event that this fight would be a co-feature for is one of this magnitude between Golovkin and Geale. This is really its own main event being for the eliminator and having two undefeated heavyweights fighting each other.

We’re excited to go into the big arena, and Madison Square Garden tickets are priced very reasonably. We’ve had a great response for the show, and we’re really excited about coming back to HBO on July 26. With that being said, I’d like to introduce the trainer for Mike Perez. Their training camp is over in the U.K. He’s had quite a bit of experience with heavyweight champions himself. I’d like to introduce Adam Booth.

· A. Booth Good afternoon, everyone. I’d just like to say that when you look at some of the fights that have taken place recently in the heavyweight division for the championship and then you look at this matchup between Mike and Bryant, I’m confident when I say that this fight is probably a lot better quality and better grade than some of the world heavyweight championship fights that we’ve all seen recently. It’s a great match up and I’m just excited to be involved in such a great fight.

· T. Loeffler Thanks, Adam. With that, I’d like to introduce number three rated in the WBC, Mike “The Rebel” Perez, undefeated heavyweight. This will be his third appearance on HBO, a second appearance in New York at Madison Square Garden. Is Mike there with you, Adam?

· M. Perez Yeah, good afternoon, everyone. I’d like to say that I just can’t wait for this fight. I think it’s going to be a very, very, very good fight so I can’t wait to come July 26 and do what I do, you know.

· T. Loeffler That’s great. Bernie, are we going to open it up for questions now?

· B. Bahrmasel Yeah, for those of you who have questions to be asked, the first portion of the call will be for Team Perez. The second will be for Team Jennings. Bricelda, go ahead and give the instructions one more time to the media please.

· Moderator Thank you. If you would like to ask a question or have a comment, please press *1 on your telephone keypad. This will place your question in the order it was received. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone keypad now.
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· B. Bahrmasel Our first call will come from Karl Freitag from Fight News. Go ahead, Carl.
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· Karl Freitag: I’d like to ask going into this fight against another undefeated fighter again if there’s still any remnants of any of the previous fight you had against Mago?
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· M. Perez

I’m just concentrating on this fight. This is the fight that’s going to change my life, this one moment that I’m working for. What happened with the last fight, it happened last fight. I appreciate it if nobody asks any questions because I don’t want to talk about that. Mago’s doing good and I’ve been asking about him. That’s in the past. I just concentrate on the fight with Jennings and this is what I worry about, to go out and do my thing, and that’s it. So if everyone dialed in listens to this, please I don’t want to talk about Magomed fight. That happened and that’s it.
I’m just

· Karl Frietag Fair enough, thank you.

· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much, Mike. Thanks very much for the question, Karl. Our next question comes from Keith Idec from The Record New Jersey. Go ahead, Keith.

· K. Idec Mike, I was just wondering how you think Bryant Jennings compares to some of the other fighters you’ve fought in terms of his ability level and what other maybe different challenges he presents to you?
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· M. Perez That’s a good question, he’s got a good record. Everybody can see that. Just come July 26 we’ll have to see who’s the best on July 26. The best man’s going to win.
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· K. Idec What did you learn, Mike, from your last fight back in January? What did you learn from that?

· M. Perez Everything, like my coach can explain to you how much I learned. I learned that this is a serious sport. A little bit, a slip, that can put you down forever, you know?
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· K. Idec Do you feel that you went into the last fight over confident? What do you mean by it’s a serious sport? Can you elaborate on that?
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· M. Perez I don’t think there was enough time to fight. I just fight like 80 days, 70 days. I just fight in November and then I fight in January again. So this is what I think of that. I think that I mentally was not ready for that.
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· K. Idec You fought too soon in other words after your previous fight right?
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· M. Perez Yes, that’s what I think, yes.
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· Tom Loeffler Keith, if I could jump in on that. It really was—the fight before that was really a tough physical fight for both fighters. I agree with Mike. In hindsight, it was probably too quick to bring him back. I was anxious to put him back on HBO as quickly as possible, and it seemed prior to the fight everything was fine but you could see probably in the performance was a little bit slack. Now that he has had some time off and he’s worked with Adam for a number of months now, I think you’ll see a different Mike Perez coming in July 26th.
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· K. Idec Mike, how do you feel physically after your injury
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· M. Perez Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank God I feel better, you know. There will be no problem there so it’s 100%.
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· K. Idec Thank you, guys.
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· A. Booth Thanks, Keith.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much, Keith. We appreciate the call.

· T. Loeffler Why don’t we do this, Bernie? Why don’t we let Gary introduce Fred and Bryant, and then we can just open up at the end of the call for any questions for either fighter. Go ahead, Bryant, Gary.
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· G. Shaw This is Gary Shaw. I’d like to thank all the reporters that are on the call for getting on the call, thank HBO for broadcasting this great fight of two undefeated heavyweights. I wanted to introduce Fred Jenkins, the trainer of Bryant Jennings, a very highly underrated trainer who’s been training for years and years in Philadelphia. Fred, do you have anything to say?
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· F. Jenkins Yeah, I just want to say thank you for this opportunity, long-awaited opportunity for Bryant Jennings. After this fight, they really do recognize as the number one heavyweight in the world.
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· G. Shaw A ll right, thank you very much, Fred. There’s not much to say about Bryant. He can surely speak for himself, as any of you that have interviewed him know. I do want to say just a couple of things. A.) He’s a tremendous family man. B.) He has tremendous character. C.) He knows where he came from, knows where he wants to go and he’s probably the best athlete that I’ve ever represented in boxing. He’s a true athlete, and I think on July 26th that will show the difference between Bryant Jennings and Mike Perez and we have a great deal of respect for Mike Perez. He’s a great fighter and we understand that. We’ve seen his fights and we know the damage that he can do.
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· I’d like to introduce Bryant Jennings. Before Bryant gets on, I just want to remind everybody that the premiere of “Road to Golovkin/Geale” is on HBO and will include a preview of the matchup between Bryant Jennings and Mike Perez with intense training and revealing interviews of both fighters. At this time I’d like to introduce who I believe will be the next heavyweight champion of the world, Bryant Jennings.
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· B. Jennings Hey, good afternoon, everybody. Yeah, I’d just like to thank everybody that has anything to do with this July 26 fight, for the opportunity for putting me up front once again. I believe that I’m definitely going to work my hardest. I believe my confidence is 100%, and just come July 26 we’re definitely going to see. Thank HBO, thanks K2 Promotions; thank Gary Shaw Promotions, Antonio Leonard Promotions and everybody else in affiliation with this show. I’m glad to be here and let’s get with the questions.
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· T. Loeffler Thanks, Bryant. You can open it up, Bernie.
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· B. Bahrmasel Our next call comes from John DeSanto from Philly Boxing History.
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· J. DeSanto Okay, hi, Bryant. It’s good to talk to you. You had, in the last year or so, you’ve had, and you’ve been up in the top of the rankings and heading towards the number one spot with a win in this fight. Prior to this you had sort of whirlwind career with a lot of activity. I know you’re always in the gym, but how are you feeling physically and as you approach this fight with not fighting as often as you’ve been used to in the prior two years?
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· B. Jennings Staying physically fit is not an easy task period. I guess you can ask a great percentage of America or a great percentage of the world. That’s not an easy task to do so I won’t sit here and say it’s easy though I’m a natural athlete and it’s in my blood and it’s in my genetics to just look and stay fit. Over the times, the couple layoffs that I had, I’m strong mentally. It takes a lot of mental strength to get over layoffs and long spots in your career. I just stay mentally focused and that’s what keeps me together, being mentally focused.
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· J. DeSanto Just one follow up, do you think, being someone who’s watched you fight all along, it seems that that is, of all of your abilities, that’s like all your strength. That’s maybe your greatest strength, your conditioning and your mental strength. Do you think that distinguishes you from your opponent this time, as well as the other guys out there in the division?
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· B. Jennings Yeah, pretty much, because us as fighters, we go through a lot. We go through a lot, and I honestly think eight weeks is too long of a time to be preparing for a fight because it’s kind of like let’s hurry up and get this thing over with but we have a lot of time, eight weeks, and for this fight it actually was about 16 weeks because of the schedule. It was cancelled; then it was rescheduled. So this is a definite mental test, definitely for the both of us, and I think that your mentality will definitely play a big part in it because it’s been very tough going all of these weeks. We maybe had two or three weeks in between, but we went a whole lot of weeks and we worked out hard. We nearly killed ourselves. We make sure that we’re fully prepared for this fight, and being mental is definitely going to play a big part in this situation.
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· J. DeSanto And this is the first time, for this fight, the first time it was scheduled and now for the first time you went away for camp. How was that and how did that affect your training this time? How was that an advantage?
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· B. Jennings Well, it affected me greatly because it’s a lot of—I’m like the head of the family. I’m like the head of the neighborhood. This is something that I’ve been before I started boxing so I’m very accessible. I just got a lot of people that’s rooting for me. I got a lot of people that want to stop by. I’m not going to say hold me up or anything, but a lot of people are seeking my attention and being away is just a way that I can just fully focus and be away from everything and put 100% into boxing.
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· J. DeSanto Great, okay, thank you, looking forward to the fight.
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· B. Bahrmasel Great. We’re going to try and go back to Dan Rafael from ESPN. Dan, can you go ahead please?
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· D. Rafael Hello.
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· B. Bahrmasel Dan, go ahead please.
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· D. Rafael Thank you, Bernie. Hey, Bryant, good to talk to you today.
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· B. Jennings Hey, what’s going on, Dan?
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· D. Rafael Bryant, my question for you is when you take a look and you see the way that Mike has looked in his last couple of fights, you have the fight with Mago where it was obviously a very physical, grueling fight. He was all over him, hard punching, never let up for ten rounds. Obviously we know what happened in that fight, and then in his next fight against Takam not quite the same as far as the ferocity, maybe not as good of a performance and it was a draw. I think Mike would admit it was not his best night. I’m wondering, when you look at those is your mentality that he’s as good as he was the night he fought Mago or maybe not as good as the night he fought Takam or is he kind of somewhere in between? How do you assess where Mike Perez is in his career?
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· B. Jennings Well, my assessment on Mike Perez and he career right now is pretty much my assessment on the way I see things as being a boxer myself and those were two different nights, two different bodies and you just can’t really pinpoint what the problem was even though it seemed to be a problem but you got to start comparing. Now you would compare Carlos Takam to Magomed. So it’s just like okay, those were two different types of fighters, two different nights. I don’t know, maybe Mike ate something that night or that morning that had him affected, but you can’t look at that and just say oh, he’s on the down slope and underestimate him and his ability and come into the fight unprepared thinking that he’s going to look like he did in his last fight.
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· D. Rafael Okay, my other question for you, Bryant, is so this fight between you and Mike is to get to the number one spot in one of the organizations where the winner is going to get a mandatory title fight so I know there’s a lot on the line for both of you guys. It’s probably something you’ve all dreamed about since you started boxing. You want to fight for the heavyweight title so you got to win the fight, but on the other side of it the guy who wins the fight is going to probably have a long way to get that title fight because the title fight ahead of you is Stiverne and Wilder and that fight is not even scheduled yet so it could be a number of months before you’re actually in the ring against the winner of the other fight. Is that difficult to think about at all or do you not even look ahead to the title fight even though that’s the motivation presumably for this bout?
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· B. Jennings Well, I’m not even looking at that. Knowing that this boxing game nowadays anything could happen, and I’m almost certain that something—I just have it in the back of my head that anything could happen and I’m not going to say what I was thinking would happen because I really don’t know what I would think, but like I said, anything could happen. They could come up with something and say well, we’ve got to squeeze this person in or you’ve got to fight this person first before you do that so I’ve just literally focused on this fight. This fight here is the fight to win in order to even think about the long wait or any other thing and that Wilder and Stiverne fight.
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· D. Rafael Okay, when you were getting ready to fight Mike the first time, before the fight was postponed or I guess at that time it was canceled and we weren’t really certain if or when it would be rescheduled—I’m wondering how difficult was it to go through the period where the fight was off, you were probably presumably very close to being ready for the fight, to not have it rescheduled. I guess it was a few weeks maybe a month even before it was formally rescheduled. The uncertainty aspect of when you were waiting to see what was next or did you just stay in shape and be assured that this would be rescheduled? How did you go about that?
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· B. Jennings That’s where my mental strength kicked in, because like I say, I could’ve broke down. We had used money for training and I was away from my son for two months. It almost seemed like it was for nothing. It definitely was a letdown, but I really didn’t dwell on it because obviously I’m still alive, I’m still here and the cancellation didn’t come at my expense. In other words, I wasn’t the one that was hurt or injured or whatever so it didn’t come at my expense so that’s pressure that I didn’t have to deal with. I was like, hey, it’s life. Learn how to deal with it. I got over it real fast. I stayed in shape and just waited patiently and put faith in my team that they’d come up with something and they came up with something fast.
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· D. Rafael All right very good. Bernie, is Mike still on the call?
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· M. Perez Yeah, I’m right here.
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· D. Rafael Mike, my question for you is your last fight was a draw with Takam. Not the result I know that you wanted so you must’ve been disappointed by the draw. Were you at all surprised that coming off of a draw you would be put into the situation where you have now the opportunity to fight an eliminator to get a title fight? A lot of guys get a draw or a loss, their next fights not in this kind of fight. It’s not at this level.
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· M. Perez No, this no was a surprise. I believe I won for the best heavyweight out here at the moment. I just have to thank my promoter that is doing a good job and make me keep going.
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· D. Rafael How disappointed were you with the draw though? At the time that it happened you have to think that you’re not going to be in this big of a fight right away.
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· M. Perez Yeah, like I said, I have to thank my promoter Tom Loeffler for that. He’s doing a good job and just pushed me to be the best.
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· D. Rafael Okay, thank you, Mike.
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· D. Rafael I have a question for either Gary or for Tom to answer. Is there anything written in the contract, being that this is an eliminator and there’s uncertainty between when Wilder and Stiverne fight, is there any language in the contract saying when the winner will get a title shot?
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· G. Shaw No.
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· D. Rafael Okay, so they should win this fight and kind of hope and wait for the best?
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· G. Shaw Look, the only fight that counts right now is this fight, and anybody looking past this fight is a foolish person and that goes for the promoters and the fighters and the trainers. They need to win this fight obviously. After this fight, the winner will then have the opportunity to worry about what’s next, whether it’s the winner of Stiverne and Wilder or one of them pulls out with an injury, whether it be real or fake. There’s a lot going on, but nothing counts other than July 26.

D. Rafael Thanks very much.

· B. Bahrmasel Tom, did you want to speak something on that as well?
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· T. Loeffler It’s a testament to both fighters, as far as what they’re risking in this fight. Even though Gary and I disagree on who’s going to win the fight, we both agree that we believe the winner of this fight will become the heavyweight champion. It’s really one of these, and Adam has spoken to it before, it’s probably one of the best match ups that we’ve seen in the heavyweight division for a long time where you have two guys risking their undefeated records on the big stage at Madison Square Garden and with the history of the Garden. That’s what makes this such a compelling co-feature fight. It’s really one of those that you look at as a 50/50 fight. It really depends on who comes in the ring that night as the better person and who leaves as the number one contender.
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· To go back to Dan’s question as far as Mike going into this type of a fight with a draw, he didn’t lose his rating. He was rated number five and Bryant Jennings was rated number four. They were the two highest rated contenders and that’s how the WBC mandated this second title eliminator so there’s a lot on the line in this fight and a lot for the winner of the fight.
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· D. Rafael Thanks, Tom. I appreciate it. Gary, thank you for the answer and best of luck to both fighters.
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· B. Bahrmasel Our next call comes from Lem Satterfield from RingTV.com. Go ahead, Lem.
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· L. Satterfield Hey, how you doing? Thanks. I have one question, two questions for Mike Perez and then one for Bryant. Mike, how is the shoulder and how was it training with the injured shoulder to get, to recover from it?
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· M. Perez The truth is 100%. I can’t wait to fight.
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· L. Satterfield Okay. Is Adam there?
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· A. Booth I’m here, yes.
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· L. Satterfield Adam, can you tell me, piggybacking on an earlier question, how is Bryant Jennings style and his ability to move? He kind of boxes and really exhibits some lower weight skills. How is he different preparing for than say Mike’s last two fights?
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· A. Booth Well, I wasn’t involved with working with Mike for his last two fights so I can’t really make that comparison. All I can do is make Mike the best he can be and then obviously work a strategy for the opponent he’s fighting. Now Bryant Jennings is a good athlete. He can see he’s a rounded athlete.
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· I would imagine he’s very capable at lots of different things and he carries that type of athletic ability into the boxing ring. He has a very good concentration and very immaculate discipline as well. He sticks to what he’s doing in a fight and if what he’s doing is working he doesn’t get reckless. He doesn’t get greedy. He keeps doing what works for him, and that shows that he’s obviously got a fantastic coach and a good relationship with his coach and he has the discipline to do what he has to do in a boxing ring.
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· My job is to look at what he does and what he doesn’t do and then we work with Mike and the incredible skills that Mike has and the phenomenal pedigree he has as a world-class amateur and all of the different styles that he’s seen. We’re working on a number of different things. We’re not just working on Bryant Jennings’ moving around because Bryant will also put his hands up and try and come up close and try and smother close. We know that he’ll use his jab.
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· And Mike will be ready for anything that takes place in that ring because he has the experience of seeing everything and I think this time around he has a new experience of actually being in fantastic condition, that he’s actually trained like a world-class fighter and a world-class athlete and he’s been a joy to work with. I expect Bryant Jennings to have a game plan. I expect him to stick to that game plan, but this is a fight where the small changes that each fighter will have to make during the fight will play out.
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· L. Satterfield Perfect, perfect, thank you so much. Bryant, you there?
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· B. Jennings Yeah, I’m here. I’m listening.
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· L. Satterfield Bryant, obviously it would be—you have to win this fight to get there, but you’re in a position to become the first American heavyweight champion in quite a while. Not only that, you have the Philadelphia legacy in general but in particular that of Joe Frazier. I wonder how much you think about the prospect of being the first American champion from Philadelphia and the legacy that you would be a part of?
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· B. Jennings I think about it a little bit, but it’s not my priority. My priority pretty much is to get through, is to get through life. As everybody knows, I’ve only been boxing for five years. I didn’t ask to be a boxer. I came in with a mindset and a lifestyle that was fit for boxing, and I knew exactly how hard it was going to take for me to work. I just want to get through. I just want to get through life so therefore I work hard.
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· I’m very disciplined with life period. Boxing is a lifestyle and I don’t live it just six to eight weeks during training and stuff like that. My light switch is never off. Being from Philly and being the first American heavyweight in a long time, that actually fuels my motivation but my motivation pretty much is just to get through life. We’re always living until we die so my motivation will never die until I die. Just pretty much my priority is just to get through life, get through what I need to accomplish, my goals and all that other stuff, the legacy.
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· Sometimes they may strip me of something. I just may be—one day I just may be the greatest of something. Somebody may be the greatest of something and they won’t be recognized for it. I just fight. I get in the ring. I do what I’m supposed to do. I live how I’m supposed to live. I eat how I’m supposed to eat. I listen to my trainers. I’m a very respectful person, all around guy, and I’m just doing this for life. This is the craft that God has set in my life for me to do, and I’m a perfectionist so this is what I do to perfect it. All that other stuff, all the titles and everything, all that stuff comes later. I just focus on my craft first.
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· L. Satterfield Bryant, thanks so much and good luck in the fight.
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· B. Jennings Thank you.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much, Lem. Next up is Sean Crose from Boxing Insider. Go ahead, Sean.
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· S. Crose Hi, how are you, Mr. Jennings?
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· B. Jennings Hey, how you doing?
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· S. Crose Good, thanks, got a question for you. I’ve been following you for a while. I remember on NBC Sports you were on quite a bit. You were almost their feature guy, if you weren’t as it was. It showed that you had full-time job. Just a question, you don’t have the full-time job anymore correct? You’re now boxing full time?
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· B. Jennings I still have a full-time—I still have the full-time job, but I’m not working. I’m on a leave of absence, and I’ll make my decision after this fight. Win, lose or draw, I have my decision in line already. So I guess you all can know what that is, but I’m not working right now but I do plan to go to work after this fight.
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· S. Crose Okay, thank you very much. My only other question is for Mike Perez. Mr. Perez, are you there?
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· M. Perez Yeah.
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· S. Crose How are you? Mike, there was some questions about you—there were some rumors that you didn’t want to fight in Texas, that you needed more time to train and so the injury wasn’t as bad as it was. This isn’t an accusation. I’m just repeating what I’ve read. Do you want to respond to those rumors?
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· M. Perez Yeah, what do you want to hear? People can talk whatever they want to talk. If I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to fight. I do want to fight. Plus Jennings and his team know that we were trying to make the fight way more before this happened. It’s not accusing. People can think whatever they want to think. Actually I don’t care.
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· T. Loeffler Right. I can jump in on that question as well. When Mike got injured, Gary will attest to it, there was no guarantee that HBO was going to—there wasn’t any timeframe as far as rescheduling this fight. Mike would never jeopardize a title elimination fight like this because the date was set and we had the venue and everything set in Texas. There was uncertainty after he got injured what would actually happen, how long he’d be out of the ring and if we could get a date on HBO and what the WBC would do as far as sanctioning the fight if the injury was worse. Whatever rumors were out there really were—there was no basis to that, and if you need more, any detailed information on the injury, Adam, I’m sure will be happy to go into detail on that as well.
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· G. Shaw And those rumors never came from the Jennings side, just to make it clear.
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· T. Loeffler That’s correct. I think they came from one of the fighters on the under card that was frustrated that his fight got canceled as a result of the entire show being canceled.
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· S. Crose Okay, that’s good enough for me. I’ll put it down. Thank you for answering the question.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much, Sean. Our next question comes from George Hanson from FightKings.com. Go ahead, George.
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· G. Hanson Good afternoon, everyone. First a comment, I applaud both promoters and managers and trainers for making this fight. My question is for the great Freddie Jenkins. Watching the tape of Bryant’s first amateur fight over the weekend and looking at his progression, how were you able to take Bryant from a guy with athletic ability to the fighter he is now because I notice something different every time? There’s another dimension. How have you been able to accomplish that over such a short period of time?
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· G. Shaw It’s a short period of time for Bryant Jennings, but it’s 43 years for me. That’s how I accomplish that.
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· G. Hanson And this question is for Bryant. Bryant, at what point did the light go off and you realized that I have the ability to be heavyweight champ? Was it initially or was it at some point or some fight somewhere in your career?
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· B. Jennings Actually I would tell you what it is. It was in May, five months after I started when I was in the Golden Glove finals. Right there was the point of no return. Maybe one of the dates, he told me, I remember this one day he told me, he said even if you don’t win this you’ve done enough. Can you imagine somebody walking into your gym and five months later you’re in Salt Lake City, Utah in a Golden Glove national, in the finals? It just was like this is it. That light switch was on ever since then. I’m just a hard worker at life. I can go on and on about that. I just tunnel vision, shoot for the stars and I’m focused.
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· G. Hanson Thank you.
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· B. Jennings You’re welcome. Thank you.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much for the call, George. Go ahead, Chip Mitchell.
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· C. Mitchell Okay. Two questions for you Bryant. Physically I can’t say anything about you other than I wish it was me, but mentally—I’m going to piggyback on something one of the other callers asked. You were maintaining a remarkable schedule of working full time, training, being a father on top of other things. Outside of boxing, when you were working full time and doing other things, did you do your training prior to your job and as well as after? How did your typical schedule work out for you?
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· B. Jennings Some mornings I would train, I would definitely do my runs and stuff before I go to work. Sometimes I would run to work. Being the great fighter and the popular person that I started to become, working at a job you start to get privileges so I was able to run to work and if I was a little late I was able to still shower and do all that. I had a lot of people that helped me along the way and made that a little easier, but I still did the eight hours of work.
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· I would train when I leave from work. Sometimes my son would meet me at the gym. His mom would bring him or I would have to go pick him up from school. Some mornings I would run and be back home in time, because I live next door to my grandma, so in time to go get my son ready for school, take him to school, then go to work, then right after work go pick him up from school then go straight to the gym and then go back home to eat.
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· My life has always been crowded, and even right now, even without the job—most people say oh, you’re going to quit your job, you’re going to have a whole lot of—no, I’m a corporation. I’m a business right now. I have to keep it going and that same pace, those same ethics, I keep going without the nine to five. I am my own nine to five now. I’m 24/7. I’ve got to live it, I’ve got to make the money and we’ve got to run the business. You’ve got a business to run so I just focus on balance. I’m a Libra so I like to balance everything up.
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· C. Mitchell Okay, well outside of being late, you might be the only one on here that actually runs to work. My second question, and you can correct me if I’m wrong on this, something I picked up when I watched you live, instead of maybe what 99.9% of boxers do to their opponents, instead of focusing on your opponent’s head it seemed like, and correct me if I’m wrong, that you were looking directly at the center of your opponent’s chest when you were fighting. I’ve never seen anyone do that. If I’m correct about that, can you explain how that works for you?
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· B. Jennings You’re absolutely correct. I’ve always—I started out that way. I think I was told—me and my trainer, he has a lot of experience with something’s that—I’m new, and it’s like teaching an old dog new tricks. If you tell a dog to chase its tail, the dog might be used to chasing its tail to the left but you’ve got to train it and tell it I want you to chase it to the right. The dog says listen, it’s the same thing. I’m comfortable with doing it this way and this is how it’s going to be. I’m going to chase my tail whichever way I want to chase it.
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· I was told once before to look the opponent in the eye, but eyes could be deceiving so I just picked up this thing. I used to play other sports so I would never look the person in the eye because, like I said, the eyes could be deceiving. I will always look at the center of your body and that way I can see which way your feet moving, which way your hands are moving, which way your body’s going to move. I don’t need to look at your eyes. I don’t want to see you and I don’t want you to see me. The only thing I want you to do is focus on my eyes and have you thinking exactly where is this guy looking at and what’s his next move. That plays a good role offensively and defensively.
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· C. Mitchell Okay, 18:0, who am I to argue. Thank you. Thank you.
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· B. Jennings You’re welcome.
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· B. Bahrmasel Chip, thank you very much for your time. Our next call comes from Raymundo Ortiz from Sports World News. Go ahead, Raymundo.
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· R. Ortiz This is for Bryant. I’m just wondering if there have been any fighters that you have fought in the past like Perez that you feel have prepared you for this big fight, aside from the training and prep you’re already doing?
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· B. Jennings That’s a good question. Lately I was comparing Mike Perez to a better Andrey Fedosov. When I fought Andrey Fedosov in June of 2013, he had some of the same tactics that I think Mike Perez brings. He brings maybe a little better, a little more flicker, but I definitely will compare him and somewhat of his style or somewhat of his approach, as far as like height and arm length and short punches and things like that, to Andrey Fedosov.
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· R. Ortiz Thank you.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much, Raymundo. Our next call comes from Keith McMenamin from Philly Keith. Go ahead, Keith.
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· K. McMenamin This question’s for Bryant. I just wanted to touch on your experience fighting at Madison Square Garden. Do you expect to have a big turnout? You’re pretty close to home. You have a lot of people coming in to support this fight?
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· B. Jennings You’re asking do I have a lot of people coming to the fight?
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· K. McMenamin Yeah.
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· B. Jennings That’s what I would imagine. As a fighter, I never worry about who’s coming. The only thing I know is that I got to be in that ring regardless if there’s two people in the audience. I’m getting a lot of love and I’m returning the love as well, and come July 26 I’ll give them something to root for. For Philadelphia fans it’s very tough so anybody who travels, what is it 90 miles from Philadelphia to New York City, to go watch somebody and to go root for somebody then because coming from Philadelphia—that’s why we fight so hard, because we have tough fans to please. Any fans that come, I appreciate them. I love them. I love their support and I’m going to keep doing what I need to do and make sure I do it well.
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· K. McMenamin All right, this one’s a follow up too. This is your second time at the Garden. What was your first experience like and what are your thoughts on Madison Square Garden?
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· B. Jennings I don’t normally get excited about where I’m fighting because the ring is the ring. You could put in the backyard. You could put it in the middle of a carnival. The ring is the ring. But afterwards, once everything soaks in and you start to celebrate your win or you just look at the affect your fight made on the boxing world and where it was at, it’ll be part of history. But it has to be done before it’s a part of history so I can only be included in history after the fight is over. I don’t have really too may good excitements before. Of course I’m excited that it’s at the Garden, but I can’t let that get in the way of me fighting well and winning that fight, being that priority.
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· K. McMenamin All right, thank you, I appreciate your time.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks very much, Keith. That’s going to conclude the media question and answer session of our call. Gary, did you want to have your team make some final comments please?
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· G. Shaw No, I just once again want to thank everybody for their interest in this fight, and I do want to say that in this day and age both fighters, forget their promoters or anybody else, but both fighters should be applauded for willing to put undefeated records up and fight one another. Too often everybody’s looking to duck the fight that they’re not sure if they could win or not, and in this fight both fighters said okay without hesitation. I congratulate both fighters, and I hope the press writes the good things about both of these fighters. Thank you.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thank you, Gary. Fred, did you have any final comments you wanted to make?
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· F. Jenkins No.
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· B. Bahrmasel Okay, anything final for you, Bryant?
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· B. Jennings I’d like to thank everybody for taking out their 51 minutes and 23 seconds out of their day to be on this conference call. I’d like to thank all of the reporters for actually calling in and showing interest in this fight. I’d like to thank America for standing behind me. I know I had the majority of the questions. That’s just an honor for me to be that I’m of interest of somebody. I’ll just fight hard come July 26 and me and Mike Perez are definitely going to put on a good show. Shout out to you, Mike. Shout out to you, Adam. Shout out to you, Tom with K2 Promotions, Bernie, everybody on that end. Let’s make it happen July 26, baby.
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· B. Bahrmasel Thanks, Bryant. Adam, do you have any final comments on the call?
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· A. Booth No, just thanks, everyone, for taking the time to do this. It’s a pleasure. Good luck to Bryant, stay healthy and look forward to seeing everyone July 26.
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· B. Bahrmasel Excellent, thank you. Mike, do you have any final comments you’d like to make to the media?
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· M. Perez Nothing more. Thank you, everyone, for being here and for all this time, all the media. Thanks to Jennings and his team and we’ll look them there July 26.
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· B. Bahrmasel Great, thanks very much, Mike. Tom, do you want to make any final comments?
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· T. Loeffler I’d just like to thank Gary again for his help on both fights with the main event, with Golovkin and Geale. As he had mentioned, the “Road to” show premieres this Saturday, July 12, and it also focuses on this great co-feature fight with Bryant Jennings and Mike Perez. We also have a great under card with some local fighters, including Glen Tapia, Boyd Melson, Julian Rodriguez, who will be on the show. We’re providing a great show of full entertainment and I think it’s fitting that it’s at the big arena, the Garden, and we’re just looking forward to a great show that night.